British athlete and London Olympic hopeful Joice Maduaka ‏was underwhelmed by Lewisham's Olympic preparations when she turned up for a practice today at the Ladywell Arena and couldn't find a working set of starting blocks. She tweeted:

Not so smart idea.Went local for practice Ladywell Arena. No starting blocks all broken.Are we really hosting an Olympic Games?

Eventually, she found some, but added:

Amazing what you get when you kick up. Smh. But they only have 1 set. Come on @LewishamCouncil sort it out http://pic.twitter.com/qNBubYMn Not moaning just disappointed in Olympic year they dont have equipment. I paid my £2.60 for use of the track.

In Lewisham we’re working towards developing some excellent sport and leisure facilities for everyone to enjoy and I hope people will take full advantage of them. In particular, my goal is to help Lewisham’s young people achieve their own goals and levels of sporting excellence.

be interesting to see what that's about Max, being the last item on the agenda could tell us something, not quite sure what - perhaps that it's a 'shoe-in' or nobody cares - perhaps what is most interesting would be from where the loan is coming from . . .

Perhaps when the Olympics is over and all of the venues are being 're-purposed' the kind people at London 2012 will donate some starting blocks to the Ladywell track. After all, Lewisham tax money's gone to pay for them...

Anyway, it would be also interesting to know how much and for what purpose.

Let's remember that two years ago Lewisham Council managed to convince the Government to give £20.5m to Barrat to start works on Loampit Vale (with the Catford dograck development losing much the same amount of money in the same breath).

With the Lewisham Gateway so stuck I wonder if they are thinking that a way to make it start would be to find the cash to guarantee a return for the developers by borrowing it (probably against the value of the Gateway just as they did to also buy the Catford Mews btw).

I just clicked on the twitter link. Someone had replied to Joice's tweet about only one set of starting blocks, saying that Lewisham Council should look into it as a matter of urgency, and copying them in. Here is Lewisham Council's reply tweet:

"if u want council to lk into something urgently pls specify what it is u want sorted and where.not a lot to b going on..."

RecommendationIt is recommended that under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 of Part 1 of Schedule 12(A) of the Act, as amended by the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Access to Information) (Amendments) (England) Regulations 2006 and the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information:-12. 13. 14.Housing IssuesRemoval of Governor Lewisham Gateway Proposed Loan

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